Operation Defensive Shield

Operation Defensive Shield ( Hebrew name
'Homat Mahgehn [Homat Magen] חומת מגן- literally
"Defensive Wall") was undertaken between March 29 and April 17 2002
(or May 10 by other accounts) by the
IDF to stop repeated
terror attacks from the
West
Bank. Operation Defensive shield was a decisive turning point in the
Second Intifada, though it did not stop terror attacks immediately. It is
also an important operation for students of military strategy, since it is one
of the better examples of successful counter-insurgency action as well as
illustrating how to fight in built up areas without incurring excessive
casualties and without mass carnage inflicted by air power, as was done, for
example, by the United States in Fallujah.

Background of Operation Defensive Shield

In September of 2000, Palestinian leaders initiated
what they called the
Second Intifada, a series of riots that rapidly escalated into violent
terror attacks including suicide bombings. Following a particularly violent
suicide bombing on June 1, 2001 that massacred 21 young people in the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium Discotheque (see
Disco Bombing) and a second bombing at the Sbarro Pizza stand on August
9, 2001 in which 15 people were killed, there were rumors of a planned large
scale Israeli attack on sources of the terror attacks in the West Bank. However,
European and American diplomats repeatedly urged restraint on Israel. During the
entire period, there was at least formally a commitment to continue the peace
process. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered
to resume negotiations if there could be just seven days without a terror
incident, but there was no such week.
Palestinian Authority president
Yasser Arafat
generally condemned such bombings in English and offered cease fires. Evidence
collected during Defensive Shield showed, however, that the Palestinian
authority was paying for suicide bomber vests and Arafat himself was signing the
salary chits of terrorists.

In the month of March 2002, Palestinian terrorism
peaked. During the month of March IDF stepped up raids against Palestinian
terror targets even though General Zinni had come to facilitate negotiations on
March 14. About 200 Palestinians were killed. At the same time, PM Ariel Sharon
offered to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians immediately, without
waiting for a period of seven days of calm. Over 100 persons were killed in various terror operations. The most
notorious of these was the suicide bombing of a
PassoverSeder
in the Park Hotel on the evening of March 27, 2002, in which 30 people
ultimately died.

ref
Again, Palestinian Authority officials condemned the bombing in official English
language announcements, but lauded the attack and the attackers in Arabic
language media.ref
Hamas took "credit" for this bombing, claiming that it was aimed at derailing
the Arab League peace initiative that was launched at about this time.
Yasser Arafat
offered the usual cease fire and condemnation of the attack.ref,
ref While a great deal of attention is focused on this bombing, histories often
neglect to note that bombings continued on the following days. On March 29,
following Arafat's cease fire call, a woman suicide bomber belonging to
Yasser Arafat's Fatah affiliated
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigadesblew herself up in a
Jerusalem supermarket
ref killing 2, and on March 28, a terrorist had infiltrated Elon Moreh settlement, killing three Israeli civilians.
ref

Summary of Operation Defensive Shield

Operation Defensive Shield was announced March 29, but it is probable that
actual preparations began previously.
By April 3, the IDF was conducting major military operations in
all Palestinian cities with the exception of Hebron and Jericho. The major
points of conflict were: Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. The major action ended in mid-April. At that time, foreign correspondents were
allowed to enter most of the battle areas. However, a siege continued for
several weeks around the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, where wanted militants
had barricaded themselves and hostages. Approximately 20,000 soldiers may have
participated in the operations. At the end of the action, a total of 497
Palestinians (by UN estimates) died, hundreds were captured, thousands were
wounded. 29 Israeli soldiers had died and over 100 were injured. 4,258
Palestinians had been taken prisoner, including 396 wanted suspects.

The stated goals
of the operation were, in the words of then PM Ariel Sharon,

"to catch
and arrest terrorists and, primarily, their dispatchers and those who finance
and support them; to confiscate weapons intended to be used against Israeli
citizens; to expose and destroy facilities and explosives, laboratories, weapons
production factories and secret installations. The orders are clear: target and
paralyze anyone who takes up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, resists
them or endangers them - and to avoid harming the civilian population."
ref

In addition to arresting and killing terrorists, IDF
hit command centers of the Palestinian Authority that were abused to organize
terror operations, and confiscated or destroyed computers and their electronic databases.
Numerous wanted terrorists were captured or killed, and as well as large
quantities of arms and documents. Notably,
IDF captured documents
showing that
Palestinian Authority chairman
Yasser Arafat had signed salary chits for known terrorists, and that the
Palestinian Authority treasury had paid for illegal arms, suicide bomber
vests and explosives. Data captured during the raids facilitated capture of
terrorists and thwarting of terror attacks in subsequent months.

Prior to the operation, neither the United States nor
the UN or the EU had done anything substantial to thwart the repeated terror
attacks. During the operation, U.S. envoy Admiral Zinni was in Israel and met
several times with the Israeli government, facilitated negotiations and
pressured Israel to end the incursion. Israel acceded to his request for a
meeting with Yasser Arafat.
U.S. Secretary of State Powell was sent to Israel initially with the mission of
ordering Israel to put a halt to the operation, this was eventually modified.
Nonetheless, Israel felt clear pressure from the U.S. and the international
community to end operation Defensive Shield as soon as possible. These
considerations weighed on operational planning and caused Israel to end the
operation without achieving all of its goals. During the fighting, in order
to pressure Israel into ending the operation prematurely, the Palestinians
fabricated a story of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp, claiming that 500
civilians were killed. Funeral films were fabricated. In one of them, the
"corpse" fell off the stretcher, got up and got back on the stretcher.
ref As detailed
below, eventually, the IDF was cleared of the absurd massacre charges by both
the UN and Human Rights Watch. But the pressure helped to end the fighting early
and the allegations of a "massacre" in Jenin were never fully retracted.

Achievements and failures in Operation Defensive
Shield

Operation Defensive Shield is often credited with
dealing a decisive blow to the Palestinian terror apparatus. In the months
following the operation, terror attacks never attained the ferocity and
frequency that they had reached in in March of 2002 (a detailed discussion is
below) but the violence did not really abate until after the death of
Yasser Arafat, and the truce concluded with Mahmoud Abbas in 2005.

Operation Defensive Shield did not include Hebron, and therefore
the entire apparatus of the radical Hamas movement was left untouched.

In surrounding the Muqata, where
Yasser Arafat was holed up with his advisers and several wanted men, the
Israeli government evidently thought it would bring about the surrender of
Arafat and dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. Instead, Arafat
turned the siege into a media event that gave him publicity around the world and
boosted his waning popularity among Palestinians.

The massive trashing of computers, confiscation of
documents and destruction of police centers aimed an important blow at the
organization and administration of the terror campaign. However, it also
destroyed the ability of the Palestinian Authority to govern. This had a number
of consequences. Chaos began to rule the Palestinian street, and funding and
organization of terrorists fell increasingly into the hands of Iran and its
radical organization, the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. However, it is probably not justified to conclude
that this disorganization is what caused the further radicalization of
Palestinian society. The Hamas came to power in Gaza. The IDF did not operate in
Gaza during operation Defensive Shield.

IDF performance was mediocre. Relative to the
performance of most armies against asymmetric threats it was outstanding (for
example, compare to American failures in Iraq) but that judgment is only
relative. After the
Second
Lebanon War it was painfully apparent that the Palestinian terror groups
were amateurish and poorly armed by comparison with the
Hezbollah in
Lebanon and that
much of the success of Defensive Shield was due to the fact that IDF was not fighting a real army.
The relatively small numbers of captured terrorists indicate that IDF was far
from successful in eliminating the terror organizations. A large number of
wanted men remained wanted and at large, and an even larger number of terrorists
probably never got into the lists of wanted persons. It may be impossible to do
better given the propensity of terrorists to melt into the population, but that
being the case, the value and possible achievements of military operations of
this type must be evaluated accordingly.

In Jenin there was a minor operational failure that
led to a major command failure, but appropriate measures were apparently
not taken. A group of soldiers had accidentally wandered into an area where they
were not supposed to be. Thirteen were killed in an ambush. Since they were not
following the plan, there was no reason to halt operations or to change the
plan, but that is evidently what was done. In order to prevent further
casualties, bulldozers were used somewhat more indiscriminately than before to
destroy houses, and less care was taken to guard civilian lives.

Barring of reporters from the Jenin battle area
helped to fuel uncertainty and aided Palestinian claims about massacres and
rights violations. From the point of view of strategic considerations, the human
rights Issues raised in the Jenin operation should have raised a red flag. The
pattern was established whereby Palestinians or other guerilla forces could
implant themselves among the civilian population and then fabricate or
exaggerate human rights atrocity stories. The charges are clearly not a side
issue, though they have been treated as such by the IDF. Human rights charges
were raised in the
Second
Lebanon War, throughout the conflict in Gaza and
in
Operation Cast Lead.

In all three operations, raising the specter of "massacre," rightly or wrongly,
was a major factor in stopping the operation and frustrating IDF objectives, and
therefore it must be recognized as a strategic threat and dealt with
accordingly. IDF planning has failed to recognize the problem of adverse
publicity from real or imagined rights violations or to deal with it in any
satisfactory way.

IDF Units Participating in Operation Defensive
Shield

Part or all of the following
IDF units took part in
operation Defensive Shield:

It is probable that the special Shaldag IAF commando
unit (Unit 5101) participated as well, but the existence of Shaldag was
classified until the Second Lebanon War.

Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin

Jenin refugee camp housed about 13,000 people, most
of whom had come to the West Bank from Jordan after the formation of the
Palestinian Authority. The entire camp is about 600 meters long and forms a part
of the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank (Samaria). During the
Second Intifada, Jenin became a central
base for terror groups and terror attacks mounted by several
organizations, notably the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the National and Islamic Front formed by
Marwan Barghouti and the
Hamas. At least 23
successful suicide attacks and 5 or 6 more that were thwarted originated in
Jenin. The attacks were aimed mostly at Northern Israel - Afula, Nahariya,
Haifa, Umm el Fahm, but on March 21, 2002 terrorists originating in Jenin
launched a suicide attack in
Jerusalem and on March 30, 2002 they were responsible for a suicide attack in Tel Aviv.

About 1000 IDF troops entered Jenin refugee camp in
three directions on April 2, after
repeatedly calling on all civilians to leave. The number of civilians who
answered this call was not known, so soldiers had no idea how many were left in
the camp. This became a factor in combat precautions taken to reduce civilian
casualties. According to later estimates, between 1,300 and 4,000 people remained in the
camp.

The attack, which had been postponed for 24 hours by rain, was led by
soldiers of the Fifth Infantry Brigade, which had not been trained in house to
house combat and had just experienced a change of commander. It was soon evident
that the entire camp was booby trapped, often with huge bombs. Islamic Jihad
terrorist Tabaat Mardawi claimed later that Palestinian fighters had planted
"between 1,000 and 2,000 bombs and booby traps" throughout the camp.
ref Some of the bombs weighed over 100 KG.
A bulldozer sent down the main street of Jenin
detonated 124 such bombs in about 3/4 of a mile. ref

IDF faced the following dilemma.
A rapid ground attack would clearly be costly in IDF lives, but political pressure
from the United States and elsewhere required a rapid end to the fighting. Chief
of Staff Mofaz initially promised the fighting would be over by April 6, but
that was clearly impossible. Aerial attack would result in numerous civilian
casualties if there were still civilians in the houses, so massive aerial
attacks were ruled out. By the third day, the Palestinians were still
holding out in most of the camp. Seven Israeli soldiers had been killed,
but this information was not generally known to the Israeli public.

Ofer Buchris, the commander of the 51st Battalion,
developed a method that allowed relatively rapid advance without unduly exposing
troops. A bulldozer was used to ram the corner of a house, opening a hole.
This ensured the house would not collapse on any inhabitants. It also gave both
civilians and combatants a chance to escape. A heavily armored Achzarit Armored
Personnel Carrier then backed up to the hole and discharged troops. This method
allowed Buchris's unit to advance a bit faster than the rest of the attacking
troops.

On April 8, 2002, an IDF unit wandered into a
Palestinian ambush by mistake. 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in a battle that
lasted several hours and included rescue by the Shayetet 13 commandos. After the
ambush, all units began relying on the "Buchris method," using bulldozers and
Achzarit troop carriers to clear a path. Palestinian resistance collapsed. The
terrorists fell back to the Hawashin neighborhood. As this was cleaned up by
bulldozers and Achzariot, they surrendered as well for the most part. Zakaria
Zubeidi was one of the few who managed to escape alive without surrendering.

Jenin camp Hawashin quarter

During the fighting, IDF bulldozers leveled an area
of about 100 X 200 meters centered around the Hawashin neighborhood where the
terrorists had holed up in booby trapped houses. This relatively small area was
shown in aerial photos by certain media outlets as if it was the entire Jenin
camp.

Allegations of a massacre in Jenin were spread
deliberately in order to create pressure on Israel to halt the operation.

Palestinian falsehoods had the following themes:

Claims of carpet bombing of Jenin and Nablus.

Claims of complete destruction of the Jenin refugee
camp

Claims that 500 people were killed in Jenin

Claims of mass graves being dug in Jenin.

On April 4 Hassan Abdel Rahman made the
following statement on CNN:

Tell me, how is your security served, Mr. Gissin [advisor
to Israeli Prime Minister], by not allowing the Palestinians to bury their
dead, and bury them in mass graves? Remember when the last time mass graves
were used? They were used in Kosovo. And Milosevic today is tried as a war
criminal. Mr. Sharon is doing exactly the same thing.

At a meeting of the Arab League on April 6, Nabil Sha'ath declared
that Israeli "soldiers had received orders from the Israeli army
chief of staff Shaul Mofaz for the complete destruction of Jenin…"

On the same day, Hassan Abdel Rahman told CNN that
Israel was performing "blanket bombing today of the cities of Nablus and Jenin,
and it is on television."

On April 13, Agence France Presse reported in
the name of Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo “that Israeli
bulldozers had dug mass graves for around 500 Palestinians he said had been
killed there, half of them women and children, he said.”

On April 14, Nabil Sha'ath told CNN’s Wolf
Blitzer: “There has been a cover-up, and bodies have been taken away to clean
up. The six days since Jenin massacre have been just a clean-up attempt, to
cover up the massacres.”
ref

Saeb Erekat told CNN from Jericho on April 10, "You
know, the Jenin refuge camp is no longer in existence, and now we've heard of
executions there," though Erekat only claimed 500 casualties in the entire
Operation Defensive Shield. ref This shameless fabrication was not enough.
On April 11, CNN claimed, "The Palestinians are reporting 500 dead," referring
to Jenin. ref

The Guardian,ref the BBC and other media outlets anxious
to vilify Israel all repeated the fanciful allegations as fact, and many
continued to do so even when there were ample data to disprove them. Media canards
generated official furor and then the media reported on the public
lynch they had created with their own canards.ref

Riding the wave of public sentiment, the UN decided
to send a "fact finding mission" to Jenin. Though Israel initially welcomed this
mission, it later refused to cooperate, because the UN had decided to send a
team of bureaucrats unacquainted with military conditions, who did not have the
expertise to judge conditions realistically. A BBC interview with human rights
and military expert David Holley, an adviser to Amnesty International,
justified the Israeli stance.
ref

Eventually both Human Rights Watch ref and the UN ref published reports that showed only about 52-56 people had been
killed in Jenin, of whom about half or more were terrorists, and ruled out a
massacre. However, both reports indiscriminately used Palestinian
evidence, and ignored evidence by Israelis, to rule that Israel had probably
committed "war crimes" such as denying medical aid to Palestinians and
indiscriminately destroying houses. The reports ignored testimony of Israeli
medical officers regarding their efforts to provide for Palestinian casualties,
and ignored the fact that Palestinians used ambulances to transport weapons and
fighters. Some media nonetheless condemned the UN report because it didn't
support the false massacre claim. Justin Huggler of the Independent complained,
"UN issues 'seriously flawed' report on Jenin killings. Long awaited
investigation repudiates massacre claim and fails to blame Israel".ref

A pro-Palestinian "documentary" movie, Jenin Jenin,
perpetuated the massacre claims with doctored footage of fake funerals and false
claims of tanks shelling hospitals. In the movie, a hospital was shown with
several chips in its facade made apparently by machine gun fire. It was claimed
that a tank shell was fired at the hospital. A tank shell would have brought
down the building.

An interview with a semi-literate bulldozer operator published later by
the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot did not help
to dispel the image,
but even he noted that he did not see any dead people. ref

Operation Defensive Shield in Ramallah

Ramallah is the administrative and commercial hub of
the Palestinian Authority. It also contained the Muqata, headquarters of
Palestinian Authority president
Yasser Arafat.
It was the center for coordinating and financing the
Second Intifada, as proven by documents
captured during Operation Defensive Shield.

IDF troops entered Ramallah
on March 29 and overran most of the Muqata, destroying all the buildings except
Arafat's central residence. Arafat and a number of assistants along with wanted
terrorists holed up in the Muqata. Arafat himself and Palestinian authority
officials who were with him, were protected by American diplomacy, but with them
were wanted terrorists including Ahmad Saadat, Secretary General of the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Saadat was wanted for his part in the
assassination of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi and other terror
acts. Arafat and media dramatized "siege" conditions in candle-lit photographs,
but in fact they were supplied with necessities including electricity. An
impasse developed. In May, it was agreed that the wanted Palestinians would be
transferred to a jail in Jericho to be guarded by an international force, ending
the impasse. However, the agreement broke down eventually when Palestinians
reneged on their obligations, and the international force abandoned the jail,
forcing Israel to raid the compound on March 14, 2006 and remove Saadat and the
others.

On April 14, 2002 IDF
found the hiding place of Marwan Barghouti and arrested him in Ramallah,
and on April 15, they arrested Taleb Barghouti, a relative.ref
Marwan Barghouti was secretary of Fatah in the West bank and a leader and
organizer of the Fatah Tanzim,
the "National and Islamic Front" and the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Marwan
Barghouti was accused of masterminding numerous terror operations and is
currently serving 5 life sentences.

A raid on
Jibril Rajoub's Preventative Security headquarters in nearby Bitunia yielded
copious incriminating documentation, including a plan by Rajoub to recruit
Israeli women soldiers to spy for the Palestinians. ref

Operation Defensive Shield in Bethlehem

In Bethlehem, following the entry of the IDF, a group
of 39 wanted gunmen armed with assault rifles and explosives holed up in the
nativity church. The group was headed by Colonel Abdullah Daud ref head of
Palestinian security in Bethlehem. It held the 46 priests and other personnel of
the church as hostages, along with about 200 civilians, including children. The
Vatican warned Israel not to to damage the church, which marks the site of the
birth of Jesus. ref On May 2, about 10 foreign
activists broke into the compound, bring found and encouragement.
ref On the 9th of
May an agreement was reached, whereby the wanted men were exiled to Gaza and
destinations in Europe and hostages were gradually released.
refThe siege ended on
May 23. Documents captured in Bethlehem showed that Christian Palestinians had
been subject to persecution by
Fatah
and related organizations such as the
Tanzim
and
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Operation Defensive Shield in Nablus

Parts of the Golani, Paratroopers and Yiftach armored
brigade participated in the incursion in Nablus, which supposedly held 8,000
armed fighters in addition to Palestinian security forces. The paratroopers came
from the west, the Golani from the south, and the armored division entered from
the east. Nablus, especially the Kasbah of Nablus, was considered to be the most
difficult city and therefore got the most attention and the best troops. There
were few Israelis casualties in Nablus. Troops progressed by blowing up or
knocking down walls within houses to get to the next house. Over 70 armed
Palestinians were killed, hundreds of prisoners and numerous documents were
captured as well as explosives laboratories. IDF also found IDF uniforms and
Jewish religious books that might be used to disguise attackers.

Operation Defensive Shield in Tulkarm

Tulkarm was quickly conquered by reserve paratroop
battalion 55 with the help of an armored force. The terrorists melted into the
population and abandoned their weapons. The mandate era Taggart fort that had
been their headquarters was destroyed by an IAF attack. Nine terrorists were
killed in the course of the battle. The surrounding villages were also taken and
hundreds of wanted men were arrested. A part of the brigade conquered Kabatia,
that had been thought to impenetrable.

Operation Defensive Shield in Jericho

Jericho was taken without a any resistance owing to
the intervention of local business interests.

Weapons Captured in Operation Defensive Shield

IDF provided the following data regarding weapons captured in operation
defensive shield. Many of these weapons

are
forbidden by the Oslo accords
security arrangements. M-16 rifles were probably stolen or bought from IDF. The
criteria for distinguishing "Sniper rifles," "Long rifles," and "rifles
with telescopic sight" are not explained, and it is not clear what weapons the
"magazines" were for. Considering the large number of bombings and
attempted bombings, 30 KG of explosives seems to be a rather small quantity.

Type

Quantity

Kalashnikov Rifles (AK-47)

1949

M-16 Rifles

32

Long Rifles

2175

Sniper Rifles

388

Pistols

781

RPG Launchers

9

RPGs

49

Mortars

6

Machine Guns/MAGs
(Machine Guns 50 Caliber)

93

Mortar Bombs

13

Magazines

311

Nightvision Equipment

121

Hand Grenades

37

Ammunition Crates

40

Rifles with telescopic sight

81

Laboratories

23

Explosive Charges

430

Explosives (In Kg)

30

Explosive Belts

6

Documents captured during Operation Defensive Shield

The thousands of documents found during Operation
Defensive Shield were probably the most important aspect of the operation. They
provided invaluable intelligence information about personnel, means of
financing, direction and other aspects of terrorist operations. They also
provided incontrovertible proof of the involvement of Palestinian Authority
institutions and of
Palestinian Authority Chairman
Yasser Arafat himself in the
organization and financing of terror. The document below is a letter from
from the Secretary General of the Tulkarm Fatah office to
Yasser Arafat,
requesting funds for a list of Tanzim
organization militants involved in planning and carrying out suicide attacks.
The letter was forwarded to Arafat by
Marwan Barghouti, the head of the Tanzim. Arafat
personally approved the payment of 800 dollars to each terrorist. The letter is dated April 1, 2001.
During this period and throughout the
Second Intifada Arafat vehemently denied that he or the
Palestinian Authority had any connection to terrorist attacks. The letter is
under the letterhead of the "State of Palestine."

Translation

The State of Palestine [Logo]

The Palestinian Movement
for National Liberation - Fatah

The Supreme Committee - Tulkarm
Region

To Brother President Abu Amar [Yasser Arafat],
may Allah protect him,

We request his Excellency to provide the sum of
2000 dollars to each of the fighting brethren listed below. The matter is for
your consideration.

Operation Defensive Shield and Terror Incidence

Contrary to popular opinion, Operation Defensive
Shield did not eliminate terror in a single blow.
refFollowing Operation Defensive Shield there was a drop in suicide
bombings of about 50% -- from 22 in February-March to 12 in April-May. There was
a 70 percent drop in attacks that were executed between the first half of
2002 and the second half (43 in January-June, 13 in July-December). In 2003
there were 25 executed suicide bombings in comparison to 56 in 2002. This was
mainly due to interception or other failures in 184 attacks in 2003. There were
actually more attacks in 2003 than in 2002. In
2003 there was also a 35 percent drop in the number of fatalities to 142 deaths,
from 220 fatalities due to suicide bombings in 2002. ref

As
the table below shows, terror fatalities in Israel were reduced dramatically
following Operation Defensive Shield compared to the immediately preceding
period, but remained unacceptably high. They were
further reduced in subsequent years.

Israeli Terror Fatalities - 2001-2004

Quarter-Year

Total
Fatalities

Q1-01

28

Q2-01

53

Q3-01

54

Q4-01

67

Q1-02

177

Q2-02

123

Q3-02

60

Q4-02

70

Q1-03

61

Q2-03

54

Q3-03

53

Q4-03

41

Q1-04

46

Q2-04

28

Q3-04

29

Q4-04

16

The spike in attacks in the first months of 2002 was
in part attributable to the presence of US envoy Admiral Zinni who was sent to
try to resume the peace process. Extremist groups and Marwan Barghouti were
interested in foiling his mission. The reduction in attacks following Operation
Defensive Shield occurred over a long period, which included other operations
such as Operation Determined Path, and the reoccupation of large parts of the
West Bank, institution of checkpoints and the construction of the security
barrier. The reduction in terror attacks in those years was
mostly due to successful interception of suicide bombers and other attackers.
This in turn was due to the security barrier constructed after the operation, to
numerous other checkpoints that were set up, and to intelligence that was
gathered during interrogations following Defensive Shield

'H
- ('het) a guttural sound made deep in the throat. To Western ears it may
sound like the "ch" in loch. In Arabic there are several letters that
have similar sounds. Examples: 'hanukah, 'hamas, 'haredi. Formerly, this sound
was often represented by ch, especially in German transliterations of
Hebrew. Thus, 'hanukah is often rendered as Chanuka for example.

ch
- (chaf) a sound like "ch" in loch or the Russian Kh
as in Khruschev or German Ach, made by putting the tongue against
the roof of the mouth. In Hebrew, a chaf can never occur at the beginning of a
word. At the beginning of a word, it has a dot in it and is pronounced "Kaf."

u
- usually between oo as in spoon and u as in put.

a-
sounded like a in arm

ah-
used to represent an a sound made by the letter hey at the end of a word.
It is the same sound as a. Haganah and Hagana are alternative acceptable
transliterations.

'a-notation
used for Hebrew and Arabic
ayin, a guttural ah sound.

o
- close to the French o as in homme.

th
- (taf without a dot) - Th was formerly used to transliterate the Hebrew
taf sound for taf without a dot. However in modern Hebrew there is no
detectable difference in standard pronunciation of taf with or without a dot,
and therefore Histadruth and Histadrut, Rehovoth and Rehovot are all acceptable.

q-
(quf) - In transliteration of Hebrew and Arabic, it is best to
consistently use the letter q for the quf, to avoid confusion with similar
sounding words that might be spelled with a kaf, which should be transliterated
as K. Thus, Hatiqva is preferable to Hatikva for example.